Improved molding and casting apparatus



UNITED STATES ,PATENT @Ei-ME.,

GEORGE ROSS, OF NEWPORT, KENTUCKY.

IIVIPROVED NlOLDING AND CASTING APPARATUS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 53,883, dated April 10, 1866 antedatcd October 18, 1865.

To all about it 112mg; cime/era:

Be it known that I, GEORGE ROSS, of Newport, Campbell county, Kentucky, have i11- vented a new and useful Pipe Molding1 and Casting Apparatus 5 and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference bein g had to the accompanying drawing, making part of this specification.

Myinventiou relates to an improved arrangement ofthe pit or trench and its appurtenances employed in casting pipes on the vertical method, whereby the several operations of clamping, molding', facing, drying, coring, casting, and stripping are enabled to be performed consecutively and without interference one with any other, the same resulting in a saving of time, space, and labor, and particularly of the more costly labor ofthe molders.

In pits ot' this class nowand heretofore employed the drying portion or oven has had but one single outlet-namely, that communik.eatin g with the molding-pit, the latter connecting at its end most remote from the oven with the casting-pit. A conseqeuence ot' this arrangement has been that the molding-pit has had4 to do the double duty ofa channel of communication between the casting-pit and the oven and of a molding-pit proper, the effect being either to throw the xnolders out of work whenever the casting-pit has had to be'tilled from the oven or to oblige them to assist in the operation of shifting, to which duty the lower paid caster is fully competent. A serious expenditure ot' time and laboris also incurred by the necessity of twice handling-with both cranes and two gangs of men---ot1 every ask conveyed from the oven to the casting-pit or from the casting-pit to the oven.

A, B, C, and D are different portions of a pit or trench, having horizontally a form nearly identical with the letter C, A being the shallowestportion of the pit for receiving the empty asks, B being the part next in order, as well as in shallowness, for molding, O being the oven for drying, and D being the longest and deepest portion, to receive the successive batches of dried molds for the operation of casting.

My oven C is provided with distinct and separate inlet and exit doors E and E', communicating with the molding and casting pits respectively.

F is a crane by means of which freshlyclamped iiasks are shifted from the receivingpit Ato the molding-pit B, and thence into the drying-oven O.

Gis a crane by means ot' which the dried molds are swung around from the oven into the casting-pit D, and by which, after having received the metal, they are hoisted from the pit onto a pair of trestles or skids, H H', on which the iiasks are opened, stripped, and reclamped. The crane G is also used to return the iiasks from the skids H H to the rcceiving-pit A.

A cove or hollow, h, in the upper edges of the skids prevents the asks rollin g off while being stripped.

The two cranes F and G and the oven O are so arranged relatively to one another as to be each and either of them capable of couimunicating with every pa'rt of the oven Without i11terference,thus enabling the two gangs of operatives-molders and castersto act independently and without detention of one another.

Operation: The flask, having been rammed and blocked in the usual manner for vertical casting, is conveyed by the crane G to its appointed place in the oven, to be followed by others in like manner until the oven is full. The oven is then closed, and, a tire being lighted in the furnace, the molds are dried in the cuctomary manner. The exit-door El ofthe oven is then opened and the molds are, by means of the crane G, conveyed, one by one, into the pit D, to be properly gated and cast. In the act of casting the ladle is suspended and passed from flask to flask through the instrumentality of the crane G. The casting having been effected, the crane G is again brought into requisition to hoist the iiasks, one at a time, onto the skids H H', whence, after opening, stripping, and reclamping, the empty flasks are, by means of the same crane G, returned to the receiving --pit A, when the work proceeds as before. Thus the entire series of operations necessary for casting pipes on the vertical method are enabled to be performed in their natural order and ina continuous circuit without interference or detention.

The arrangement selected to illustrate my invention is one that has been satisfactorily tested by me in the foundry', and which I have now in active daily operation; but various changes may obviously be made While retaining the essential feature of an oven having separate communications with the moldingpit and casting-pit. For example, an inferior modification retaining` some of the more important advantages ot' my plan may have the form of the letter S, the two cranes in suoli arrangement being, of course, on opposite sides of the trench.

I claim herein as new and of my inventionl. The vertical pipe-mold dryingoven herein described, arranged with separate and distinct communications with the molding and casting pits, as and for the purpose specified.

2. The described orequivalent consecutive GEORGE ROSS.

Witnesses GEO. H. KNIGHT, J AMES H. LAYMAN. 

